In a decision rendered on Monday, the Council of State sanctions the Government for its inability to enforce the standards of pollution levels throughout the territory.
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This is a new camouflet for the government. In a decision rendered Monday, October 17, the Council of State ordered the State to pay a record penalty of 20 million euros for its inability to bring back the levels of air pollution below the regulatory thresholds on the all territory. The invoice now amounts to 30 million euros.
The executive had already been sanctioned by a fine of 10 million euros by the highest administrative court in August 2021. It concerned the first half of 2021. This new conviction covers the period between July 1, 2021 and July 1, 2022.
insufficient progress
Between the two decisions, the situation has certainly improved but not enough, according to the administrative judge. Overwriting of the boundary values in nitrogen dioxide (no 2 ), toxic gas emitted mainly by road traffic, are always observed in several agglomerations: Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse. In 2021, five metropolises were affected by overruns, according to the latest national air quality assessment published on October 14 by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
Now, for years that the State should have put an end to these overruns which expose the French to a major risk for their health. Air pollution is at least 40,000 premature deaths each year and a litany of pathologies. Impacts on non-smoke lung cancers, breast cancers, cerebral vascular accidents and cardiovascular diseases, etc. In recent weeks, new scientific publications have confirmed and clarified the multiple deleterious effects of (no
Five years of state reminders
It has been five years since the administrative judge has urged the government to take “all necessary measures” to bring back the levels of pollution in standards. The first decision of the State Council dates back to July 2017: it then orders the government to end the overruns “within the shortest possible”. In 2019, after years of formal notice and requests for “rapid and effective actions” on the part of the European Comission, it is the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which condemns France to have “Systematically and persistently exceeded the annual limit value for nitrogen dioxide since 1 er January 2010″. But unlike the Council of State, the CJEU has still not pronounced financial sanction.
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